The Huron County Healthy Rural Policy Lens has become a valuable tool for any board, committees or agencies in developing policies that impact rural communities.
That's according to Project Lead Sheila Schuehlein.
She explains the project was introduced in 2014 and got a huge boost two years later with funding from the Rural Ontario Institute for a 30-month research project.
Schuehlein says the rural lens is particularly helpful for urban organizations or governments when developing policy or legislation that impact rural communities. The lens is a way of helping them appreciate the differences between urban and rural communities and how what they're proposing might influence or come into conflict with those differences.
The rural lens also gives people in rural communities the opportunity to provide input into policy discussions and identify specific concerns they might have about pending policies or legislation.
Schuehlein will be making a presentation about the rural lens in mid-August at the International Rural Sociology Association conference at Ryerson University in Toronto.